Botswana 2.0

Two years ago my friend Chad and I released Botswana, a browser-based arena game with programmable bots written in JavaScript.

But the original was kind of boring. So we tweaked the game mechanics a bit and made a number of other modifications (multiple bots per team, extensible rulesets, etc.). And now we present Botswana 2.0, a culmination of rampant nerdiness.

The thing that interests me most about the game now is the customizable rulesets. For example, it took all of ten minutes to change the game so it’s played on a series of conveyor belts that move the bots up and down:

It likewise took less than half an hour to make the bots orbit the Death Star instead:

Since the drawing code is part of the ruleset, it’s fairly easy to get a radically different look:

Switching between the rulesets is just a matter of changing the URL in the ruleset box and starting a new tournament.

Anyway, as before, the release is on GitHub, with a README that explains how to write bots and customize rulesets and stuff.